Catch That Kid

An obvious attempt to cash in on the financial success of the Spy Kids and Cody Banks franchises, this Hollywood remake of a Danish kids' adventure movie takes the genre to a new low. Kristen Stewart plays Maddy, a rock-climbing teen who uses her skills to rob a state-of-the-art bank (where her mother just happens to be head of security, but whose owner villainously refuses the family a loan) in order to pay for an expensive operation for her dad. She enlists two chums, Austin and Gus, by feigning a romantic interest in each of them, and when she's required to babysit her kid brother the night of the heist, she brings him along, too. The obstacles include a pair of guard dogs and a couple of Keystone Kop security men (very badly played by James LeGros and Stark Sands), and there's a big getaway scene involving go-carts (though in the end, of course, ethics dictate that theft not be the source of the funds Maddy needs). All this seems not only foolish but also rather tasteless, and the pallid cast coupled with Bart Freundlich's flaccid direction insures that it lacks charm as well as intelligence. Not recommended. [Note: DVD extras include both widescreen and full screen versions, audio commentary (by costars Kristen Stewart, Corbin Bleu, and Max Thieriot), the five-minute Oscar-nominated short “Scrat's Missing Adventure: Gone Nutty,” eight deleted scenes, and trailers. Bottom line: while it's always nice to see both widescreen and full screen versions on a single disc, the best thing about this DVD is “Scrat's Missing Adventure,” and that's already on the Ice Age DVD, so save your money.] (F. Swietek)